Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials...Reporting.. Lesson 13

Introduction

Reporting the results of a clinical trial is one of the most important and least studied aspects of clinical research. Investigators have an obligation to disseminate trial results in a timely and competent manner. Many features of good reports are similar for all types of trials and find widespread acceptance in journals.

Uniformity is important to readers, particularly to those who are the least familiar with the details of the disease or the intervention under study. The benefits of uniformity are evident in some chronic diseases like cancer, where standardized staging has improved trial design, reporting, and interpretation.

Learning objectives & outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

• recognize critical elements in a journal article or abstract that reports clinical research
• apply guidelines from JAMA to reports of results from parallel group randomized trials and reports of safety
• access a vast number of trials registered with Clinical Trials.gov